The metaphysical requirement. Isn’t that where we all get tangled up in language here? To what extent can the human mind [employing language employing logic] create an argument that captures the relationship between free will and moral responsibility such that we can take this argment out into the world and intelligently discuss what exactly goes on when Mary chooses to have an abortion. Or, less the moral element, when Hillary Clinton chooses to run for president?
The minds of animals further down the evolutionary trunk are always fascinating to consider here. Somehow “nature” has programmed them to make choices in the manner in which I always imagine the human mind would make choices in a wholly determined world.
Only with non-human animals the element of morality is basically missing. The lion eats the man because the lion is basically on automatic pilot. Hunger is the only motivation. What it chooses revolves entirely around necessity. But how exactly is life here programmed by nature to actually accomplish this?
Consider:
An octopus has the capacity to camouflage its body [through both color and texture] to blend seamlessly into many different environments. How is it able to do this? If human beings had this capacity it would be imagined that the mind would note the color/texture of the new environment and make the necessary adjustments. It would self-consciously choose the appropriate combination of colors and textures. But the octupus would not seem to be self-conscious in this sense at all. And yet it’s brain is able to make these crucial adjustments as though in some manner it were.